IDS Classics

These classic IDS Bulletin articles were chosen by IDS Research Teams and Alumni to celebrate IDS' 40th Anniversary in 2006. These 40 publications reflect key research themes that IDS has covered throughout its history, and show that certain pieces of research remain very relevant today.

Among the many authors included are Sir Hans Singer, Anne Marie Goetz, Robert Chambers, Naila Kabeer and Andrea Cornwall.

The author argues that conventional economics ignores or marginalises the role of power and politics which are crucial factors in conditioning the variable structure and performance of markets. More details

Famine prevention is possible but requires, among other things, a better theoretical basis, building on comparative, interdisciplinary and historical research. Key aspects of that task concern, first, the relationship between starvation, disease and death. More details

The ultra-poor – a group of people who eat below 80 per cent of their energy requirements despite spending at least 80 per cent of income on food – are most vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations in food supply and wage employment, and seasonally induced nutrition and health risks. More details

This article is a selective review and summary of arguments put and points made at the workshop on indigenous technical knowledge for which some of the other articles in this IDS Bulletin were originally written. More details

More and more people recognise that the social scientist has an important role to play in technological change; fewer (outside the academic world) have any very clear idea of what this role should be. More details

Globalisation has become a catchword for the international economy in the late twentieth century. It is a truism that nations have become more interdependent through the flows of goods, services, and financial
capital since the 1970s. More details